RAS SHAMRA: CANAANITE CIVILIZATION AND 

 LANGUAGE 



By Zellig S. Harris 



[With 4 plates] 



During the last hundred years the work of archeologists and philol- 

 ogists has brought within reach of our knowledge the civilizations 

 which preceded ours. There are still many who mock at archeology 

 aa the innocuous digging up of pieces of ancient pots, and many more 

 to whom archeology is merely a romantic search for objects of gold or 

 for material of anecdotal interest about ancient kings and queens. 

 But to those who understand the meaning of history, archeology has 

 the invaluable function of making available for historical study the 

 facts of past civiUzations. From finds in many sites, and from the 

 decipherment of countless inscriptions, we have been able to piece 

 together some knowledge of the cultures and social structures and 

 languages of Egypt and of the Mesopotamian areas. More recently, 

 excavations in Asia Minor have been giving us a picture of early 

 civiKzations in that area. 



In Syria-Palestine, however, there has been comparatively Uttle 

 large-scale excavation. The civilization of that area was not un- 

 known to us, both from the Hebrew reactions to it in the Old Testa- 

 ment, and from its later contacts with the Greeks and Romans. From 

 our knowledge of Egyptian and Mesopotamian history, we gathered 

 that this was a politically weak area of small city-states. There was 

 no far-reaching empire here with great kings and much gold, and the 

 first excavations in Palestine yielded few objects of headhne value. 

 Partly for these reasons, partly because of the negative judgment 

 of the Bible, the early civilization of this area was held of Uttle im- 

 portance. The Phoenicians were explained as merely borrowers of 

 cultural traits, or at best mediators between great cultures — as though 

 cultures did not normally borrow and mediate and adapt. But in 

 spite of such value judgments which ill befit historians, people have 

 long been eager for a direct word from this civilization which borders 

 in so many points upon those which preceded and fathered ours. 



Ras Shamra is the first site to give us the beginnings of an authentic 



479 



